ignore Alternate Data Streams

Discuss new features and functions
Posts: 2
Joined: 2 Jul 2026

mwk_ch

Hi

The source filesystem of a copy job is NTFS, the target is formatted with ReFS. ReFS has a limit of 128 KB for ADS. Some files have bigger streams.

When FFS tries to copy such a file, it fails "due to a file system limitation".

It's clear that it's not technically possible to copy the file including ADS to ReFS. But in my case, it would be sufficient to just copy the file and ignore it's streams. It would be nice to have an option "ignore ADS" or even better: "ignore ADS if too big for target filesystem".

Thank you!
Posts: 4892
Joined: 11 Jun 2019

xCSxXenon

Is that truly syncing the two sides then? FFS is for syncing, and you are asking for something that is inherently no longer a sync
Posts: 1212
Joined: 8 May 2006

therube

Seems like a perfectly logical request to me.
FFS copies ADS.
If there are different limitations on ADS on different file systems, they should be taken into account.

128 KB does seem to be the number for ReFS.
Didn't see a specific size for NTFS?

Create a 0-byte file.
Create a 1 GB ADS for said file.

What happens if you try to copy (sync) from NTFS to ReFS?
(I can't test, only have Win7.)
Posts: 2
Joined: 2 Jul 2026

mwk_ch

Yes, I only copy and don't sync.

When I try to copy a file with ADS bigger than 128 KB from NTFS to ReFS in Windows Explorer, I get the same error message about a file system limitation.